


in the low lamplight ( i was free )

by thelostcolony



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M, Handfasting, Missing Scene, References to Illness, Slice of Life, They Discuss Their Relationship, people are sleeping on Ethan/Brona and i Will Not Have That, stop sleeping on my southern hick and his gal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22782808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelostcolony/pseuds/thelostcolony
Summary: When my time comes around, lay me gently in the cold dark earth.
Relationships: Ethan Chandler/Brona Croft | Lily Frankenstein
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	in the low lamplight ( i was free )

**Author's Note:**

> i love my himbo boy and his beautiful broad ok

**_in the low lamplight ( i was free )  
_ **

∘  
  


He smells the way she imagines America does.

It’s special, equal parts his own sweat and his occupation. Gunpowder mingles with the odd scent of dry heat, the sort that she thinks the desert must have. His fingers carry the tang of metal and oil, his lips the lingering taste of sweet seeds. She kisses him to get a hint of it over, and over, and over again.

Bathed in the soft, pale light of the morning, Brona traces his features, relaxed in a doze. She lies curled against him, sharing body heat against the draft that flows through the floorboards and the walls. The dock is hardly a good place for an inn, considering the sea always carries a wind. Her nose is buried into one of their pillows, both to ward off the chill and to breathe him in.

She lays a palm flat over his chest, feels it rise and fall. If she concentrates hard enough, she thinks she can feel his heartbeat in her palm. In her pulse. In her own chest. It beats for him more than it beats for her now.

He makes a soft noise, hand coming up to cover her own. It’s huge and warm, and makes her own hand feel girlish and small, not at all like the woman’s hand it’s become. “‘Mornin’,” Ethan rasps, hoarse with sleep, and Brona raises an eyebrow at him.

“G’mornin’ _again_ ,” she greets, and is treated to a smile as he opens his eyes. 

“I doze off?”

“Only after ye tried t’proposition me.”

Ethan’s smile grows, and a dimple appears. He nudges forward and rubs his nose against hers. “Was I successful?” he murmurs, and his lips brush hers.

She nudges his nose back. “Yes, ye right scoundrel,” she says, but lets him kiss her. His whiskers are wiry against her cheeks and mouth, but his kiss is full of tenderness.

“Scoundrel I might be,” he says between soft presses of their lips. “But if it worked, then ‘m a happy one.” He wraps his arms around her, snaking beneath her and drawing her closer, to his chest. She lets him. If it were any other man, she would resent the fragile treatment. She’s no girl. Her daintiness is gone. But Ethan knows that. 

Ethan knows every inch of her.

“Good _sir,”_ she says in faux shock as his kisses grow more heated. “I’d think ye were tryin’ to ravish me if’n I didn’t know better.”

He smiles against her mouth and runs roughened palms down her arms, her sides. His skin is like sandpaper, but he’s gentler than anyone has ever been. _“If’n I didn’t know better,”_ he teases in a poor imitation of her brogue, “I’d’ve said you were wrong.”

She squeals as he flips them, clutching her safely to his chest as he does so, and leans over her. His smile is boyish and bright. Her heart aches in the best of ways. “Now what’s a lady like yourself doin’ with a man like me?” he asks, and Brona gives him a dry look.

“I ask m’self that every day, Ethan.”

“Say it again.”

“ _Ethan_.” She rounds out the sounds.

“No, like you do. _Eetan_.”

She grabs a pillow and shamelessly whacks him in the side of the head with it. He makes a wounded noise and flops beside her again, hair flying. “Quit makin’ fun or I’ll have ye out in yer knickers!”

“Good thing I ain’t wearing ‘em,” Ethan grins, and Brona smacks him with the pillow again. “Alright! Alright, cease fire,” he exclaims, and captures her hands in his own. He lifts them to his mouth and presses a kiss on the inside of each wrist. “You sure showed me.”

He’s a dumb, silly man, but he makes her laugh even when she can’t help it. She laughs now. “And yer absolutely barmy,” she tells him, and grins back. “Canna ken why I stay with ye.”

Ethan’s expression softens. “Me either.”

His tone has changed. Brona sighs and turns away from him, feet dangling over the edge of the bed. She feels a cough stirring from all the movement and laughter. “None of that now, Ethan. I know ye can’t forgive yerself for whatever ‘tis ye think ye’ve done. Really, canna ken why ye stay with me, more like.”

Ethan sits up. All their playfulness is forgotten. “Marry me.”

Brona rolls her eyes and wraps a blanket around herself as she stands up. “Not this again, Ethan.”

“Why won’t you say _yes?”_ Ethan demands, bunching the covers in both his fists. “You know I want to and I know you want to, so what’s got you saying no?”

Brona brushes her hair out with her fingers. “Don’ know why ye’d tie yerself to a tragedy, Ethan.” 

“Don’t _talk_ about yourself that way,” he says, eyes flashing, and her gaze finds his in the mirror. 

Her temper spikes, and she rears around. “That’s how it is, is it? Already thinkin’ ye can tell me what to do even though we’re not married? Just waitin’ until I have no choice but te listen then, are ye?!”

Ethan shrinks back, stricken. “No,” he says, and the sharpness is gone from his voice. “No, that ain’t it at all.”

“Ye only want _t’own_ me,” she snaps. Her harsh breathing fills the room, barely stifled coughs loud as gunshots.

A small eternity passes as Brona wrestles with her anger. Ethan is quiet when he speaks, hushed with seriousness and some hidden plea. “Brona, that’s not true.”

It’s the soft, grieved sound of his voice that dims Brona’s temper again, and she deflates slowly, feels the indignance in her drain away. There’s a headache brewing behind her eyes, the result of her withheld coughs and their argument and her weakness, not just in illness but for him, too. When she rubs at her eyes and finally looks back at him, his gaze is raw and mellowed.

She drinks him in as she stands motionlessly at the sink. Then, she sighs and cups water in her hands, bending to rinse her face. When she rises, she stares at her face in the mirror — takes in her gaunt skin, the crusted blood at the very corner of her lip. She doesn’t even bother scowling, thumbing it away.

She isn't even bothered by her next words; they're true. “The only thing ye’d own would be a tragedy, anyhow.”

The covers rustle as he rises, floorboards creaking. His warmth settles behind her, close and comforting, and she catches his eyes in the mirror. The look in them is indistinguishable, but Ethan’s voice is sure and steady when he speaks. “But she’d be my tragedy.”

She turns her face away, hiding her mouth against her shoulder and her expression in his chest. She doesn’t want him to see how much that means to her.

She’s going to die. Her name means _sadness_ , and she’ll live up to it. She wants to have no regrets.

“If we’re t’be married, we'd have te settle somewhere," she tells his buttons, and she gently bends to his will and all his lovely promises. “where’d we do that? Not ‘n this godforsaken place, I’d hope. Maybe ye’d take me back home to yer America.”

Ethan exhales, a puff against the top of her head. “Ain’t nothin’ there but a nice landscape. My home is wherever you are. Where you go, I go.”  
  
Brona prods his ribs, laying her head fully against his sternum. “Stop it now wit yer romantics. Jesus Christ, I’d’ve not pegged ye for such a sap when I saw ye.”

“‘S true,” Ethan says, shrugging. “I’d stand in front of a minister right this minute an’ say I want you to be my lawfully wedded wife.” The words, despite the blasé way they’re said, are clearly sincere: Ethan’s heart pounds furiously against Brona’s cheek, reverberating through her.

She sighs. “I told ye how my last marriage worked out.”

“I know.” Ethan’s hold around her tightens, loosens, tightens. “But I’m different from him.”

 _Boys._ She resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Aye, I know y’are, Ethan. But ye’ve gotta admit that _Brona Chandler_ ain’t got much of a ring to it.”

“Mm,” Ethan hums. “Mrs. Chandler might, though.”

“Mrs. Chandler,” Brona drawls out, and feels a laugh rumble in Ethan’s chest. She tries to let herself imagine it, that beautiful, impossible future: a little house on a green, wildflower dappled hill, sunlit and happy. Little ones playing in the garden, high laughter. A cozy hearth at the end of a long day, a bairn in her arms and Ethan at her side. Lying beside him at night, his warmth seeping into her bones and chasing away all the darkness in her heart, all the sickness in her limbs.

It’s a beautiful dream. But it’s only a dream.

She’s long since made peace with the ache that suddenly swells within her, that catches her by the throat and invades her lungs, but it grips her differently this time. This time, it hits faster than she can prepare for, blooms and pops like a soap bubble in suds. The cavern that yawns inside her, that holds all the emptiness and fear and loneliness in her, seems to be unbreachable.

And she wants, desperately, for Ethan to fill it, for him to breathe his warmth into that stone cold space and make her feel again. She wants him to take her heart, cradle it in his sandpaper hands, and tend to her with his sweet words and bonny eyes.

Maybe it’s this weakness (this horrible, lovely weakness) that lets her speak. That makes her want to be wed to him as quickly as possible. That makes her want it to be theirs. “I don’t know about the law. But we can be married here an’ now if ye really are serious, God help ye.”

“How?”

She pulls back to look him in the face. “Ye’ve never heard of a handfast?”

Ethan’s eyebrows scrunch down at her. “Not all of us are quite as cultured as you, Miss Croft.”  
  
She can’t help the way she smiles. “Put on some trousers,” she says. “And I’ll have ye.”  
  


∘

“Repeat after me,” she says. They’re kneeling in front of the window, bathed in sunlight that turns Ethan’s hair auburn and his eyes gold. “I Brona Suibhan, do take thee, Ethan… oh. I dinna ken yer second name.”  
  
“Lawrence.” Ethan licks his lips and rubs his free palm against his trousers. To his credit, the hand that holds hers is steady and dry. “It’s Lawrence.”

“I, Brona Suibhan, do take thee, Ethan Lawrence, for my lawful wedded husband.”  
  
“Lawful? Thought you said you didn’t know about the law.”  
  
“With all the jokin’ yer doing, I’d’ve said ye didnae want to do this anymore.”

Instantly, Ethan sobers, hand flexing against the red rope that binds their wrists together.

Brona would feel bad for him if not for how pretty he looks. She takes a deep breath. “I, Brona Suibhan, do take thee, Ethan Lawrence, for my lawful wedded husband. With my goods, I thee endow. With my body, I thee worship. In sickness and in health, in richness and in poverty, as long as we both shall live, I plight thee my troth.” 

Brona’s eyes find his, and she gives his hand an encouraging little squeeze. Ethan clears his throat and licks his lips again, straight backed. Even though it's only them, he's taken on an air of extreme solemnity and the utmost seriousness. “I, Ethan Lawrence, do take thee, Brona — Brona Suibhan, for my lawful wedded wife. With my goods, I thee endow. With my body I thee worship in sickness. And in health, richness and poverty. As long as we both shall live. I plight thee my troth.”

His emphasis is in all the wrong areas. She loves him for it.

She tugs on the band wrapped around their hands, and ties it. Once she’s looking at it, she can’t look away. Just like that.

Just like that, her heart belongs to him. But it's been like that for a while now. All that's new is that she can see it.

“...What now?”

Brona looks at him. She doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve this beautiful man in her life, but one thing is for sure: Saint Jude answers her prayers, even if it wasn’t in the way Brona expected. 

“Now, as my husband, ye take me t’bed,” she tells him, and he doesn’t need to be told twice.  
  


∘

Later, after they’ve made love and laid beside one another and Ethan’s fallen asleep, Brona watches him.

He's beautiful when he's at rest. 

It's easy for her to forget, sometimes, how easily he fits his body. He seemed to her at first too broad, too tall for the man she came to know — shoulders too stiff, back too straight. Ethan is many things, but he has never been militant like his posture suggests. But oh, how the smell of gunpowder clings to him. She's learned to treasure that smell: to wake to it beside her, to her nose buried in it. She craves it when she's alone, when his side of the bed is cold and he is off doing whatever dangerous night work he's deemed important enough to leave her side for. She loves him at her side, and hates him for it too. 

She would have been able to leave this world with a chip on her shoulder and blood on her tongue, the taste of copper heavy and righteous. She would have been able to spit at God's feet and say, "I never broke: I never loved the ones I fucked. You were wrong to preach it to me when you made me like that in the first place." But she can't. Not now. Not now that they’re handfast. Not since she first saw him.

Not with how she aches for him, for his soft smile and his long hair, his strong hands and his muscled arms, the way that he holds her delicately. Not when she longs to touch his eyelashes, to smooth her fingers over the pale skin of his chest, to trace nonsense into the curves of his back. She's tempted to now. His bare back glows in the darkness of the room, the moon's light hitting it just so that it illuminates his skin. She can see every contour of his muscles, each vertebrae in his spine. His back, like his nose, is dotted with freckles here and there. There's one in particular she likes: her favorite. It's on his shoulder blade. She would touch it now, except that he's a light sleeper, and always looks so tired. His face is turned to her, peaceful and lax in sleep, long eyelashes against high cheekbones. He really is beautiful. He doesn't smile in his sleep, but his lips have a curve to them like they want to. It makes his dimples appear.

She can't resist. She gives into the temptation, smoothing his hair from his face first, a test. He doesn't move, and his breathing doesn't change, so she allows her fingertips to trail along his shoulder and to his back, gently tracing her favorite freckle. Ethan shifts a little, sighing in his sleep, and then does smile. 

She watches him, expecting his eyes to open and for him to raise his eyebrows at her. But that easy smile remains, and his eyes remain closed. Something in her jolts when she realizes that he recognizes her touch. Welcomes it. 

She swallows. Her name means _sadness_ , and she will surely live up to it. Would that she could spare Ethan the pain of her passing, but there's nothing she can do but love him while she's here, and hope he loves her enough to move on when she's not. 

She leans forward and presses her lips to that freckle on his shoulder, one of many. He sighs again, makes a soft sound, and his hand reaches out, searching. It finds her nightgown, fingers gripping softly, soothed by her nearby warmth. Her heart flips. 

She lies back and watches him, and watches him, and watches him, until the moon dips out of the sky and dawn begins to bloom.

He's beautiful, and Brona can only hope she looks half as lovely when she dies.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this because I've always imagined that Ethan and Brona were handfast in the show. I did extensive research on handfasting, but if any of my information is incorrect / inaccurate, please don't hesitate to let me know!
> 
> Thank you very much to the lovely hauntedjaeger (saellys) for betaing this!
> 
> You can find a mood playlist for Ethan/Brona here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Ea6xIw4JsQOKLeNzatQv4?si=o1GRaLM_TLCUDcN7Kg26-g
> 
> Follow me on tumblr for fic updates & commissions! thelcstcolony@tumblr.com
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and please leave me a comment on your thoughts!


End file.
